St. Paul daily globe., 1887-03-26
GOOD sHoRTHAND WRITERS.
why They Are scarce-.The Train
ing Necessary Efficiency.

ing Necessaryto Efficiency.
III young man wanted to be always
sure OF good position" said business
manager In Boston lately, Il would have
him learn to write shorthand. learn the
typewriter, and add bookkeeping, so that
he could keep the accounts at a pinch.
Then, no matter how hard the times were,
he would be sure Of work. If he got out
Of a place I'd agree to take care of him till
he found another, every time.
Now don't rush off for ''Pitman'' or Join
shorthand class till you know what you
are about for good deal more goes to
making stenographer than knowledge
how to write shorthand. in the first place,
to be good shorthand writer land second
rate one is not worth the room he takes)
requires the firmest, sOundest nerve. No
business that can be named takes so much
out of one as shorthand reporting. Hear
ing. eyesght, hand and brain are called
upon for their highest work and the most
intense attention. Sandy-hared boys of
sanguine temperament and pale-lipped dark
ones should choose outdoor work
and let reporting in every case
alone, except for amusement. Hun
dreds of such young men are carried
to their graves every year from the
offices and newspapers of the city who
might be hale, long-lived men il they had
not mistaken their vocation. Lean. wiry
men and women are best for desk work,
and stand the drain of indoor life with least
loss. The young men and women who
have a secret desire for easy positions
should let shorthand alone.
The shorthand writer, like the typical
newspaper man, wants to have the widest
intelligence possible-to know something
about everything. at least enough TO know
what is talked about. For not only mer-
chants and lawyers. but physicians, editors
and literary men. 70 say nothing of poll
tcans are coming to find the services of a
shorthand writer OF great use in their pro-
fessions. And to be of use, he must be
man who takes things at a word, who
knows a geographical name or a character
in history or fiction when he hears it, with
out stopping to ask what that word was
and bothering to have it spelled-a process
which goes far to drive the principal dictat-
ing out of his senses.
The secretary needs such keen and close
attention as to catch the direction and the
exact words without having to utter that
irritating 'What?" every ten minutes or
oftener, breaking the thread of thought and
wasting time when his express business is
to make the most of it for an over weighted
Then, as corresponding clerk or secretary,
he must have the forms of good business
address at command, so that he can put
curt directions into courteous end we'll
turned phrase. An order worth thousands
may be lost to the house by too stiff tone.
the offensive independence of a phrase. or
one which has something over polite and
solicitous about it.
II want man." said Boston merchant
asking for a stenographer. ''who can take
my idea in three words and put it into
shape in a letter. neatly written, spaced
and directed. If | can get such man he's
sure of good place as long as Pm going"
But the clever head of a reference Office he
applied to could only shake his head and
say, ''if we had twenty such men they
would all find places tomorrow and as
hmany the day after"
| A keen business man of wide experience
| in many kinds of works says: The trouble
with three-fourths of the young men and
girls who learn shorthand and typewriting
is they don't know anything They expect
to get along by knowing their one branch
and nothing else, and it is no use.
You get clever girl at type
writer-one who can rattle Off eighty
words Of the Declaration of Independence
minute, or Longfellow's Psalm of Life,
or anything she knows by heart-and set
her down to write business letter from
dictation, and she has to stop and turn her
machine up every three lines to see if she
has spelled word right. 1t puts one out.
and makes the mail late. Or she lets it 90
| with blunder that would disgrace an in
fant scholar, and there isn't time to write
1t over. Sometimes the whole batch of a
morning has to be done over. If | happen
| to say Buenos Ayres she is dumbfounded.
donitknow what heather I'm naming, and
l must write it out before she knows what
is meant, and Chattahoochee would floor
her forever.
That's my business. Now, if I am die
taring Oh time for my paper-not minute
to spare, and it isn't the least matter
how it looks, and the proof-reader minds
the spelling, ten to one, she'll have her
eraser out every other line to correct some
fancied bemish. and you can't get it into
her head or her either that all you want is
to drive ahead and get that manuscript
ierked up to the printers in fifteen seconds.
That's what [ call want of intelligence.
And out of 200 young men and women we
tried to fit for typewriter secretaries there
were not five should call good ones, who
could be trusted to write letter without
some shabby blunder in spelling or in
phrase.
1t is no uncommon thing to find short
hand writer unable to make out his own
report, from the same cause that renders a
typewriter's copy incoherent, the want of
habit of fixed attention. In lack of this.
dots. dashes ana words go wild. 1t is good
training for either work to learn long pas
sages of any author by heart. in the exact
words of the text. taking no more than one
can correctly remember at time, repeating
and re-repeating day after day till the
whole page is photographed on the brain.
There are plenty of people who probably
never made the effort of close attention to
anything in their lives. Their minds pick
up what impressions they will, right or
wrong, and the rest is void. They can
rattle the keys of a typewriter or copy long
passages from some familiar author read
aloud by careful friend. but this makes
neither reporter nor secretary. Intelligence,
close attention, familiarity with good usage
| in phrase and spelling, must all go before
the learning of the mechanical act, or be
painfully acquired after it, to be of any real
use in these vocations.
Funny Things From Tots.
| A little fresh air child" who had never
| sann q cow bafOrp was watohinp the milk.